


This is Where We Are Now

by lilisdivine



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Betty Cooper Loves Jughead Jones, F/M, Investigative Duo, Jughead Jones Loves Betty Cooper, Not A Happy Ending, Season 5 Predictions, Sort Of, There's a little fluff, also post 5x03 technically, blink and you'll definitely miss it, except we don't get to the lovers part because this is never getting finished, exes to investigative duo to lovers, i'm probably hyping the angst too much, jughead pines a little bit, post 4x17, seven year time jump, so does Betty, the author subtly makes fun of the shows sloppy writing, unfinished work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28017669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilisdivine/pseuds/lilisdivine
Summary: This is a scene from the Bughead fanfiction I was writing earlier this year but abandoned after the first chapter. I've been writing this since way before Jessica was announced as a character for season five and before the writers started teasing Barchie in season five, so this isn't totally based on what's most likely going to be canon.Also, I'm posting this for this week's Bughead Challenge theme, which is angst. If you're unfamiliar with the challenge, check out BugheadUpdates on twitter.
Relationships: Adam Chisholm/Betty Cooper (mentioned), Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper (Mentioned), Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Jughead Jones/Debbie Dalton (indirectly mentioned)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	This is Where We Are Now

As Betty and Jughead walked down the hill toward the car junkyard with stars littering the evening sky, Betty looped her arm through Jughead’s. It was out of old habit and nothing more, of course. But neither of them seemed to notice.

“So, how exactly do we plan on getting into the car junkyard, Jug?”

He laughed. “Please, this is the southside. Unless they changed the protection policies in the past seven years, which never existed here by the way, then we can probably get in there no problem.”

When they walked down the hill, she asked him, “Do you remember which car is your dad’s?”

“Uhmm… Brown Honda.” Jughead finally looked down and noticed his arm was linked with Betty’s. He tried to cover his awkward laugh with a cough and said, “Maybe we should…”

Betty looked down at their arms. A slight brush crawled to the tips of her cheeks. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry.” She unlinked her arm with his, but they continued walking. “It’s just, and old habit, y’know,” she explained as she pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands.

“No, no. You’re fine… it’s just… uhm…” He tried to look anywhere but her eyes to avoid making himself feel even more awkward until they finally landed on her ring finger, wrapped in silver with a large diamond he probably could never afford.  _ Focus, Jughead. The car. Focus on finding your dad’s car _ . “Are you happy?” He blurted out.

“Happy to be here with you or happy with life?”

“I meant more like… does Adam make you happy?”  _ Shut up, Jughead _ .

Betty chuckled. “Why, jealous?” she teased him, nudging his arm.

“Of course not!”  _ Yes _ . “I’m just… making conversation.”  _ I just want to make sure you’re happy. That’s the only thing that matters to me. _

Betty smiled at him. “Yes, he does.” Of course he made Betty happy. He was rich, so every time she had a rough day, it usually meant he’d have a new dress in her closet by the end of the evening, which was often. Sometimes he’d use his All-Season Red Sox tickets to cheer her up when she was upset about school or something that happened with her mother. In the five years that she’s known Adam, she could no longer count on her fingers and toes how many Taylor Swift concerts he had taken her to just for the hell of it, no matter how far away it was.

Betty stopped walking for a moment and frowned. She realized that she was happy with what Adam  _ did  _ for her, and she got that confused with being happy with him. She could not put her finger on one time where she felt the same way with Adam that she did with Jughead. Maybe it was because dating in high school and dating as adults is extremely different. Either way, the difference made her feel slightly uneasy. She wasn’t materialistic, not before she met Adam. She wasn’t easily wooed by the things that money could buy. Nonetheless, she still wanted to marry him.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Jughead asked after realizing she stopped walking.

“No, yeah. I’m fine. I’m just… glad we’re back to this,” she gestured between them and the junkyard. “Investigating together. Like old times.” She quickly realized what she just said and whose murder they were investigating. “I mean, the circumstances suck, obviously. But it feels good to be back… doing what we’re supposed to, y’know?”

He smiled warmly at her. “Yeah.”

There was a long silence, and it bothered Betty. After a while, she blurted out, “What about you? Are you happy?” Her heart raced, and her voice was slightly creaky, afraid of hearing the answer.

He laughed and mocked her voice from earlier. “Why, jealous?”

A smile tugged at the corner of her lips and she playfully smacked his arm. “I’m serious!”  
“Okay, okay,” he put his arms up in surrender. “Truth be told, I don’t know. I stopped putting my happiness in the hands of my relationships with other people after we broke up.”

_ Ouch _ . “Jug, I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you.” She reached out and gently brushed his arm.

His heart ached. He knew that. More than anything, he knew how much she regretted everything with Archie. That didn’t make the heartbreak any less painful.

He sighed, stepping away from her touch. “Yeah, Betty. You never do. But that didn’t stop you from kissing my best friend.” His voice was about as chilled as the winter breeze nipping at the tip of her nose.

“Jug…”

He ignored her advances and tried to change the subject. “So, FP’s car is probably toward the front since his accident just happened a few weeks ago.”

“Jughead, can we at least talk?”

“We did, Betty,” he said as he crouched down in front of a car to see if it was the one they were looking for, “seven years ago.”

“I mean now. Surely the conversation would change, right?”

He laughed sarcastically. “Oh, you mean like it would change the fact that you’re about to get married and I’m in a relationship with someone else?”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean that… I want to apologize to you and I want you to listen to me before you run out on me again.”

“Could you have blamed me for running out?!” He stood up and faced her again. “Betty, I had just found out that the love of my life  _ cheated  _ on me with Archie Andrews, despite telling me two weeks prior to when it happened that she had no feelings for him. How am I supposed to react to that? How do I not run away from that?”

“You could have stayed!”

“Like you did, right?”

“I… Before I left for Archie’s, we mutually agreed that we couldn’t see a future without one another or didn’t want to imagine one without the other in it. I just wanted you to graduate on time with me so we could make that happen.”

He raised an eyebrow in disbelief of what she was trying to tell him. “So you kissed Archie?” When she was silent, he sighed and continued, “I had recently come back from a prep school where they, in case you’ve forgotten, tried to  _ murder  _ me. I was traumatized. You were there. You were the one that saved my life and did everything you could to make sure I made it out of there alive. You knew mysteries were my way of coping or just what I did for fun. I was trying to get my mind off of the fact that I not only nearly died, but my girlfriend had to witness it happen and nearly get framed for it.” He sighed. “Despite what you thought, or may still think, I wanted to graduate on time with you, and I did want a future with you.”

“You say that like I don’t -- didn’t -- want one with you.”

“Really? Because look where we are now. I’m in a relationship, and you’re…” he didn't want to say it. Instead, he gently grabbed her left hand, bringing it to a stop in the front of her face so the palm of her hand was facing him and the back was facing her. “You kissed Archie. This is where we are now.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm more used to writing fluff, so I'm pretty new to writing angst. I'd love to hear your thoughts or comments!


End file.
